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On January 6, the U.S. Supreme Court asked Ralph Nader to respond to Arizona’s request that the Court take the Nader Arizona case. The response is due February 6. The case is called Brewer v Nader, 08-648. The issues are the validity of Arizona’s early June petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators.

Demo Rep, you do realize that the Democrats and Republicans get free ballot access in all 50 states and DC without any need to petition or collect signatures, right?

I agree that separate is not equal and Ralph Nader is leading an effort to get some of these obviously biased ballot access laws designed to keep independents and third-party candidates off of the ballot.

“Eli Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Demo Rep, you do realize that the Democrats and Republicans get free ballot access in all 50 states and DC without any need to petition or collect signatures, right?”

This is not true. There are several states where Democrats and Republicans have to gather petition signatures in order to be on the ballot. Some of those states are Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Arizona (to name just a few).

Eli is correct. No state ever requires the nominees of the Democratic or Republican Parties to petition for a place on the general election ballot. Whenever either the Democratic or Republican Parties ceases to be a ballot-qualified party, the legislature in that state simply changes the law. The last time this happened was in Virginia, when the Democratic Party went off the ballot in 1990. The legislature was rushed into special session and the law was changed, putting them back on retrospectively.

Candidates who are seeking the nomination of the Democratic or Republican Party do need to petition in many states, but they are party nominees.